Become a Solo Video Producer with Swivl

As everyone knows by now, video is a primary medium with which to communicate to potential clients and customers, and with the explosion of online media outlets such as YouTube and Vimeo, anyone can become a video producer. But a challenge arises if you are on your own. How do you do a video shoot with yourself? The only answer is to mount your camera on a tripod — which is no easy feat if your camera is also your smartphone (as is increasingly the case). Right? Well, not anymore!

Enter Swivl. What does Swivl do? It “makes your camera follow your action” using some pretty sophisticated gadgetry.
All you do is take your iPhone (or Flip camera), mount it on the rotating Swivl base, and then you can walk, run, or ride across the entire field of view holding a special marker device and Swivl will, well, swivel to ensure the shot is always following your movements. The demo video shows people doing activities outside as well as a presenter indoors who is using the marker to zero in on information on a whiteboard. As a video blogger myself, I can see tremendous opportunities to use this for video scenarios I wouldn’t have even considered before if I didn’t have an extra videographer to assist.

Swivl is part of the fast-growing movement of crowdfunded products, and is slated to enter production early 2012. You can reserve a unit in advance of production, and the suggested retail price will be $159.00. Some might say it’s odd to buy an accessory for a smartphone that costs almost as much as the phone itself, but it seems like the kind of device that, for scrappy web video producers, pays for itself pretty quickly.